Contraception mandate good public health policy

The sanctimonious claims of religious discrimination by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse due to a federal mandate to provide birth control coverage is bogus. It is a voluntary option available to those who wish to take advantage of the health care option.

This is nothing more than an ongoing discrimination against workers and women. For example, you can’t cut someone’s salary because they don’t share your religious beliefs, so why should you be able to cut their benefits?

By any measure, providing birth control health insurance coverage is an excellent public health option, with the benefits of lowering unplanned pregnancies and abortions. But then again, if the Catholic Church were concerned about public health, it would have turned over to law enforcement all the claims of child sexual abuse in this monolithic organization. The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, up to and including the current pope, seem more concerned with their image than the traumatic effects on children of their pedophile priests.